Some good news. Coal has just slipped below 50% of China’s electricity generation for the first time: the amount burned is expected to peak in 2030. It’s capacity expected to be exceeded by solar this year. Long way to go but the coal addiction seems to be weakening. www.forbes.com/sites/curren...

China Starts To Kick Its Coal Addiction

This week’s Current Climate newsletter also looks at Waymo’s reliance on imported Chinese EVs and a potential “super cycle” for cleantech investment.

forbes.com

May seem counterintuitive, but solar parks above fields can actually boost crops, as here. In another case it increased yield by 30% through providing shelter. Sheep and panels can also go well together. Doesn’t apply universally, of course, but still good news. www.canarymedia.com/articles/sol...

Mixing solar power and agriculture: A blueberry farm does a test run

A farmer in Maine has teamed up with a solar developer and university researchers to find out how his berries fare when partially shaded by solar panels.

canarymedia.com

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

A review of over 500 studies has established that climate change is “reshaping” plankton communities in uk seas. Worrying since these form the very base of the marine food web, so there are potentially serious impacts on sea life and fisheries. oceanographicmagazine.com/news/from-pl...

From plankton to plate: Changing UK seas are shifting food webs - Oceanographic

UK report documents accelerating climate-driven shifts in plankton communities - with consequences for food webs, fisheries, and carbon.

oceanographicmagazine.com

Big oil is increasingly pulling out of the North Sea.This suggests that the environmentalists’ description of a fast diminishing field is much truer than Trump‘s assertion (influencing Burnham) that it is a huge resource companies are itching to exploit. oilprice.com/Latest-Energ...

BP Puts Its North Sea Oil Business Up for Sale | OilPrice.com

BP has formally launched the sale of its UK North Sea business as it redirects capital toward higher-return oil and gas projects around the world.

oilprice.com

As birth rates fall, more than 100 English schools have had to close, disturbing children and communities. How long will it be, as Western societies continue to age, before they start competing to attract, rather than repel, young immigrants? theconversation.com/falling-birt...

Falling birth rates mean schools are closing – affecting whole communities

Schools provide a link between generations in a local area.

theconversation.com

Extraordinary. Research concludes that the impact of climate change on vegetation in the tropics - home to over half of the world’s species - in the next 24 years will be the same as has occurred naturally over the last 3.3 million years. theconversation.com/impact-of-cl...

Impact of climate change may be equivalent to 3.3 million years of transformations in tropical vegetation

Changes that took millions of years can now happen in a matter of decades, and this accelerated rythm can be destructive, with dangerous consequences for the planet

theconversation.com

Madness. Trump has killed or cut back 216 clean energy projects in the last 18 months, cisting the US ecinomyb$90 billion, and sacrificing the creation of 470,00 new jobs. www.ecoportal.net/uk/216-clean...

More than 200 US clean energy projects have been canceled or downsized, and the reason is not cheap panels but a $68 billion mix of grid gridlock and a closing tax window

Somewhere in the American heartland sits a wide, flat field.

ecoportal.net

You’d think the ’ships of the desert’ could cope with global warming. But no. Nearly half of Somalia’s camel-owning households have lost at least one to drought, research finds. In parts of the north of the country this rises to almost three-quarters. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Africa's camels are dying from extreme heat as temperatures soar

Herders and experts tell the BBC how Africa's camels are suffering because of extreme heat.

bbc.co.uk

Water companies have discharged over 117,000 hours of #sewage from 1165 overflows near popular #bathing beaches so far this summer, reports @sascampaigns.bsky.social. Yet, it adds, the public is often told that the water at them is “excellent”. www.ft.com/content/1fd5...

Sewage discharges flout guidance near 65 beaches in England since May

Overflows at bathing sites come as tourists flock to coastal areas for summer holidays

ft.com

Amazing Bhutan, the country that absorbs over ten times as much carbon as it emits, and measures its economy by Gross National Happiness. Forty years ago I was privileged to be one of the first western journalists to tour it, in one of the highlights of my career. spacedaily.com/m-almost-eve...

Almost every nation pumps more carbon into the air than it removes, but one small Himalayan kingdom does the exact reverse: Bhutan absorbs more carbon than it emits, a rare carbon-negative country tha...

While the world chases net-zero pledges, Bhutan achieved carbon negativity through an unconventional measure of progress that treats forests as seriously as factories.

spacedaily.com

Nine million tonnes of grain have so far been lost across Europe in the drought. France‘s maize harvest lowest in 50 years. Romanian farmers have lost over a million acres of crops. 20,000 people dead, including 2200 in UK. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Climate crisis-driven heat ‘sucking soils dry’ as extreme drought hits Europe

Analysis shows how heatwaves are making atmosphere thirstier, damaging water supplies, food production and power generation

theguardian.com

A new worry from the Iran war. Scientists warn that the hulls of 1500+ ships trapped for months by the closure of the Straits of Hormuz will be gathering life that they could spread worldwide when they open , causing a “massive” invasive species crisis. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/thou...

Thousands of idle ships trapped near the Strait of Hormuz could become floating nurseries for invasive marine species and spread them worldwide when trade resumes

Having escalated into open hostilities on February 28, 2026, the current United States and Iran war has been going on for nearly five months. In this period, the Strait of Hormuz, the only open-ocean ...

timesofindia.indiatimes.com

Secret documents suggest that almost 90% of 300,000 U.K. sewage spills over the last two years may nave been illegal, but gone unpunished. The new ministers must finally get a grip. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Secret court documents reveal potential scale of illegal sewage spilling

The new analysis from a prominent water campaigner emerged after secret court documents were leaked.

bbc.co.uk

Rivers are drying up across Europe as the drought goes on. The Loire is just a dry bed in places. The Rhine is only a meter deep at a critical gauge. The Danube, says an official Roumanian agency, is at its lowest for 30 years.The Elbe and Po also in trouble. www.downtoearth.org.in/climate-chan...

Rhine, Danube, Elbe, Loire. Some of Europe’s biggest rivers are going dry this summer

Rivers across the European continent, including some of its most important waterways, are drying up as an unrelenting heatwave refuses to go away.The Danube, Rh

downtoearth.org.in

disappointing that @edmilibandmp.bsky.social isn’t chancellor. But he can still have a big impact on climate internationally as foreign secretary, as some predecessors did. And appointing @miattafahnbulleh.bsky.social to his old job is very good news. Much depends on @andyburnham.bsky.social.

Net zero denial gone madder than ever. In the midst of its massive heatwave, the Trump administration has scrapped over 1600 pages on how to save energy, and thus cut bills, from its Department of Energy website. Who is it serving, the people or the utilities? www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

Over 1,600 energy department webpages on utility bill savings removed as US temperatures soar

Guardian analysis found the removals coincided with the Trump administration’s push to weaken efficiency rules

theguardian.com

Analysis of nearly 2,500 reports in the UK’s nine main national daily publications found that almost three quarters of them failed to mention climate change and less than one in 20 referred to net zero. Shamefully bad journalism, apart from anything else. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Most UK media reports on June heatwave failed to mention climate crisis

Exclusive: Analysis of nearly 2,500 articles finds almost three-quarters made no reference to global heating

theguardian.com

As if the increasingly scorching heat were not enough. Warming waters from climate change have brought a plague of silver-cheeked toadfish - the second most poisonous vertebrate on Earth, with a bite that can crunch through bone - to the Med’s bathing waters. www.thetimes.com/world/europe...

Toxic pufferfish that can bite through bone lurks in Mediterranean

Floating barriers are being put up to protect bathers from the species of pufferfish that can bite through a finger

thetimes.com

If the US dramatically changed course and achieved net zero by 2050, it could save the lives of 33,000 of its people every year, new research suggests. That would mainly be the result of cutting the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. phys.org/news/2026-07...

Cutting emissions more, removing carbon less could save 33,000 U.S. lives yearly

Published in Nature Climate Change, new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison finds that reaching net-zero emissions by midcentury would substantially improve public health in the United S...

phys.org

Encouraging, if we act. The expected disruption of the Gulf Stream - giving the U.K. the climate of Labrador and causing devastation worldwide - could be avoided if we cut emissions now, concludes new research. Will governments listen? www.newscientist.com/article/2532...

Slowdown of AMOC ocean current may be gradual and reversible

Scientists worry that a surge of meltwater from Greenland could irreversibly collapse the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, but new modelling suggests the weakening of the current could be ...

newscientist.com

More than a million people a year now die because of antibiotic resistance. A huge failure of the market - profit-obsessed companies don’t want to develop drugs only used for short periods - and of governments refusing to take action. It will get worse. www.chemistryworld.com/news/metabol...

Metabolised antibiotics can drive antimicrobial resistance just as much as their parent compounds

Studies on wastewater show that antibiotic transformation products may play an underappreciated role in driving antimicrobial resistance

chemistryworld.com

Every £1 of public money invested in net zero delivers between £2.20 and £4..10 in return, reports top economist @mazzucatom.bsky.social im this wide ranging article. Drawn from official figures, this gives the lie to all those claims about it’s vast cost of. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Labour has abandoned the missions that brought it to power. Here's how Burnham could revive them. | Mariana Mazzucato

With a new prime minister incoming, Labour faces a fundamental question about its economic vision, says economics professor Mariana Mazzucato

theguardian.com

Some deniers cite the 1976 heatwavE as proof that the climate is not changing. These scientists looked into it, and have concluded that the present one is far worse, thanks to global heating. “We are living in a very different climate to 50 years ago”. theconversation.com/we-recreated...

We recreated the legendary heatwave summer of 1976 in today’s climate – here’s what we found

For 15 consecutive days, temperatures were over 32°C. Today, heatwaves are 3°C or 4°C hotter.

theconversation.com

This is crazy. Putting solar panels over car parks is a win-win-win, producing clean energy, shading the cars, and protecting the countryside. France requires it. But the U.K. government has inexplicably rejected it. eastangliabylines.co.uk/environment/...

As Britain bakes, ministers quietly park plans for solar carports

Ministers have quietly shelved plans that could have transformed Britain's biggest car parks into shaded power stations

eastangliabylines.co.uk

Excellent piece by Jonathan Freedland on the idiocy of climate denial - and media distraction from the crisis -in the midst of an unprecedented heatwave that climate scientists have firmly attributed to global heating. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Climate sceptics cheering as they melt in record temperatures? This heatwave is where satire has come to die | Jonathan Freedland

Delegates at an ‘anti-woke’ conference disparaged Ed Miliband’s net zero policies. But even they could not ignore the sweat on their foreheads, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland

theguardian.com

Some 1.6 million children, including 700,000 babies, are at serious risk, because of living in overheated homes in increasing heatwaves, expert analysis has concluded. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

One in six babies in England live in overheated homes – analysis

More than 70,000 babies living in hot homes as climate crisis drives record temperatures

theguardian.com

Sceptics about climate change often point out that many more people die of cold than heat.They are right, for now. But research predicts that rising temperatures will kill more people from heat than they save from the cold, making it the greater cause of death. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more Europeans by 2100, study finds

Net increase of 80,000 deaths a year projected in hottest scenario, with milder winters failing to redress balance

theguardian.com

Climate change sceptics often say that cold kills many more than heat. They are right, for now. But research shows that rising temperatures kill more than they save, so that heat becomes the greater cause of death in a warmer world. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Dangerous temperatures could kill 50% more Europeans by 2100, study finds

Net increase of 80,000 deaths a year projected in hottest scenario, with milder winters failing to redress balance

theguardian.com

Worryingly, microplastics seem to head for the brain. Typically ours now contain about a spoonful of them, much more than ten years ago. www.futura-sciences.com/en/more-micr...

More microplastics found in the brain than in liver or kidneys alarming discovery - Futura-Sciences

The findings, led by researchers at the University of New Mexico, show that these concentrations have risen sharply since 2016, leaving brain tissue far more contaminated than liver or kidney tissue. ...

futura-sciences.com